What Android Has That iOS Hasn’t

The comparisons between Android and iOS are numerous. Perhaps the most notable is that iOS has always been designed for ease but not customisable. With iPhone users demanding more personalisation, things might be about to change. Tim Cook said at D11 “I think you will see us open up more in the future, but not to the degree that we put the customer at risk of having a bad experience.” In this article we’ll look at what Apple could do to help iOS catch up with Android.

Keyboard Replacement

The default keyboard on iOS is the most common requested customisation from iOS users. A typewriter keyboard on a tiny touch screen is probably not the most efficient way to type, especially one-handed. Android on the other hand, allows you to replace the default version with third-parties keyboards like Swiftkey (it learns how you type to predict your words) and the popular Swype gesture typing keyboard. Both of these can drastically speed up communication.

Widgets

The iOS lock screen and home screen haven’t really changed and with all the real-time feeds of information available, it makes iOS look static and somewhat boring. Android lets you pull all the data you want from different apps and displays it across your lock and home screens. So although Apple have sought to keep the interface consistent, experienced users are ready to customise their own.

Cross-App Functionality, Data Sharing & Defaults

There are no boundaries between apps with Android. You can easily share information and content with someone else, sending photos from one editing app to another for example. Android also lets you pick which app you want to set as a default. This is something iOS doesn’t let you do; surely we’re all capable of choosing whether we want Chrome as our default browser or Google maps as the default navigation tool.

There are plenty of other possibilities of personalisation on Android so as WWDC starts, it will be interesting to see what Apple can introduce to make iOS users feel like their Apple devices are something unique to them.

[Image via google-android]

SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/many-shades-of-android-apples-all-the-same/